As a writer, there is very little that feels as violating as when someone steals or plagiarizes your work. But in the era of the internet, anything can and will happen. I have had my work plagiarized several times, and sorting the situation is not a barrel of laughs.
One of the tools I use to keep tabs on my content is Google Alerts. Google Alerts are a great way to keep tabs on all sorts of things. They email you on whatever terms you would like (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) to let you know when certain words or phrases come up.
I have a Google Alert set up for my name, because then, when an article is published under my name and I get an alert about it, I know that it is out there being read by people. I also set up Google alerts for certain phrases in my content, so that if someone copies it, I can be notified. I also use Google Alerts for my websites, so that I can see when someone links to my sites or includes them as a resource.
Trust me when I tell you that plagiarism online is not a lot of fun to deal with. Even if you can get a hold of the perpetrator, it can take weeks and sometimes month to get the content taken off their site.
